A swash plate type compressor shoe has a swash plate which is rotated by a rotating shaft in a cylinder block and a piston which is slidably fitted inside the cylinder block. Conventionally, in order to convert the rotary movement of the swash plate to the reciprocal movement of the piston, a shoe with a hemispherical recess is brought into slidable contact with the swash plate, and a ball is interposed in the hemispherical recess between the shoe and the swash plate. However, when both the shoe and the ball are used, the assembly procedure becomes complex. In addition to this, since the shoe and the ball are in slidable contact with each other and the ball and the piston are also in slidable contact with each other, much power is consumed by friction between these members. It is also difficult to make the overall length small in the axial direction of the shoe and the ball, resulting in a great length of the cylinder block in the axial direction. A compact swash plate type compressor has therefore been difficult to manufacture.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a swash plate type compressor shoe wherein the assembly procedure is simple, the power loss due to friction is reduced to the minimum, and the axial length of the cylinder block is shortened so that the compressor may be compact in size.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing by plastic deformation, a shoe of the type as described above, which does not require a shoe element of good precision conforming to the shape of a press die and which still guarantees a shoe of excellent shape.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing a shoe of the type described above, which allows a uniform load to act upon the shoe element and reduces the flow of the material during the plastic deformation, and which allows smooth processing.